"Shepherds flock round the manger" by Pamela Mordecai

Shepherds flock round the manger

Den some shepherd, seven or eight of dem,

come round, say dem was in de field

wid dem flock and dem get a big fright

when a angel appear out of a great light

so bright likl most it blind dem.

And because dem did know

is Jah-Jah miracle, dem frighten for so!

But angel smile and say dem mustn’t fraid

for de good news him bring

going make people on earth

jump for joy. So of course,

everybody well eager to hear.

Angel say a baby just now born

into David city is Saviour,

Emmanuel, de Anointed One.

And him give dem a sign. Him say dem

going find de baby wrap up tight

in warm clothes lying down in a animal trough.

And same time a big crowd of angel

join up wid de first one. Dem all

praising God and singing,

“Glory to Jah up high in de heavens!

Peace to all down here pon de earth

dat please him!” Talk about a story!

Dem say soon as de angel dem gone

dem set out to look for de baby.

So me show dem my likl boy child,

him face smiling wid sense.

No pikni me know have two eye open so

studying de world right as him born!

All dis while me did glean wid my nose

de liklest shepherd was frighten so bad

him pee up himself. When dem reach,

him did come to de front to look on

de baby, den him hide at de back,

for him shame. So me call him, “Eli!”

(How me know de boy name, Jah to tell!)

“Come, Eli. You want hold de baby?”

When me hand him de child,

him look down on Jesus and him face

catch a fi re like somebody strike it

wid a flint. And same time

sweet algum fill de air

all around and boy and baby flare

in a bright candle glow.

de Book of Mary is now available @ Amazon:

 http://tinyurl.com/perf7lo

de Book of Mary is an epic poem in Jamaican Creole based on the Biblical story of Mary, Joseph and Jesus. The first book of a trilogy, Pamela Mordecai's, de Book of Mary covers Mary's life from her early years, through the arrival of the Archangel Gabriel and the birth of Yeshua, to her death. 

A Chorus of male and female voices provides an accompanying commentary. This exciting Canadian-Jamaican retelling, profound and tragic, yet told with humour and gusto, is a major event, continuing Mordecai's project of hybridizing one of the most significant cultural-religious phenomena in world history. The last book of the trilogy, de Man, about the crucifixion of Jesus, was published by Sister Vision Press in 1995 and is now out of print. The poet is currently working on de book of Joseph, second book of the trilogy.

About Pamela Mordecai

Pamela ('Pam') Mordecai’s previous collections of poetry include Journey Poem (1989); de Man, a performance poem (1995); Certifiable (2001); The True Blue of Islands (2005), and Subversive Sonnets(2012). de book of Mary, from which “Jesus Takes Leave of Mary and Goes  into the Desert” comes, will appear in fall, 2015. In 2006 she published Pink Icing, a collection of short stories; her first novel, Red Jacket, appeared in February, 2015. 

She has edited and co-edited ground-breaking anthologies of Caribbean writing including Jamaica Woman (1980, 1985, with Mervyn Morris); From Our Yard: Jamaican Poetry since Independence (1987); Her True-True Name: An Anthology of Women's Writing from the Caribbean (1989, with Betty Wilson) and Calling Cards: New Poetry from Caribbean/ Canadian Women(2005). Her play, El Numero Uno had its world premiere at the Loraine Kimsa Theatre for Young People in Toronto in 2010. In spring 2014, she was a fellow at the prestigious Yaddo artists' community in upstate New York yaddo.org. Pam and her family immigrated to Canada in 1994. She lives with her husband, Martin, in Kitchener, Ontario

"Mary has a baby boy" by Pamela Mordecai

Mary has a baby boy

Well next thing you know,

de Roman emperor name Caesar

Augustus send out a instruction

dem must count all-o-we!

Dat time in Syria, one man name

Quirinius was governor.

Dem send orders dat every man jack

must find himself back to de town

where him born to write him name

down into a book. So Joseph

set off from Nazareth town where him live

in Galilee country and go to de city of David

what dem call Bethlehem, for is where

him family come from. Him take me

wid him, no mind me big wid baby,

for him say is him response for de two of we.

We leave Judith and Sarah

wid my ma and pa.

At de self same time when we reach

to Bethlehem, dis baby

decide him coming too.

Joseph ask for a room at de inn

but de place pack up right to de brim,

not one likl corner nor crack leave over.

Me sorry for Joseph! Him look high,

him look low till him find a stable and is dere

me born Jesus, wrap him in warm clothes,

give him a first taste of my breast,

and like how we never have no crib, settle him

in de dumb animal feeding box.

***

de Book of Mary is now available @ Amazon:

 http://tinyurl.com/perf7lo

de Book of Mary is an epic poem in Jamaican Creole based on the Biblical story of Mary, Joseph and Jesus. The first book of a trilogy, Pamela Mordecai's 
de Book of Mary covers Mary's life from her early years, through the arrival of the Archangel Gabriel and the birth of Yeshua, to her death. 

A Chorus of male and female voices provides an accompanying commentary. This exciting Canadian-Jamaican retelling, profound and tragic, yet told with humour and gusto, is a major event, continuing Mordecai's project of hybridizing one of the most significant cultural-religious phenomena in world history. The last book of the trilogy, de Man, about the crucifixion of Jesus, was published by Sister Vision Press in 1995 and is now out of print. The poet is currently working on de book of Joseph, second book of the trilogy.


About Pamela Mordecai

Pamela ('Pam') Mordecai’s previous collections of poetry include Journey Poem (1989); de Man, a performance poem (1995); Certifiable (2001); The True Blue of Islands (2005), and Subversive Sonnets(2012). de book of Mary, from which “Jesus Takes Leave of Mary and Goes  into the Desert” comes, will appear in fall, 2015. In 2006 she published Pink Icing, a collection of short stories; her first novel, Red Jacket, appeared in February, 2015. She has edited and co-edited ground-breaking anthologies of Caribbean writing including Jamaica Woman (1980, 1985, with Mervyn Morris); From Our Yard: Jamaican Poetry since Independence (1987); Her True-True Name: An Anthology of Women's Writing from the Caribbean (1989, with Betty Wilson) and Calling Cards: New Poetry from Caribbean/ Canadian Women(2005). Her play, El Numero Uno had its world premiere at the Loraine Kimsa Theatre for Young People in Toronto in 2010. In spring 2014, she was a fellow at the prestigious Yaddo artists' community in upstate New York yaddo.org. Pam and her family immigrated to Canada in 1994. She lives with her husband, Martin, in Kitchener, Ontario.

Excerpt from "de book of Mary" by Pamela Mordecai

JESUS TAKES LEAVE OF MARY AND GOES INTO THE DESERT

Plenty hard to believe my son turn
thirty dis winter season just gone!
Not dat me never watch

every minute, each day, as him grow.
But is like you see and you don’t notice,
and den, all of a sudden dis big

somebody hold you face in him hand
kiss you on you forehead,
say, “Mums, I going now.”

Never mind how much time
I protest and ask why him must go
off alone to a place wid no water, no food,

not a green thing to lift him spirit...
“Mums,” him say “why I would
leave dis house, you and Gran, best cook food

in dis town, my sistren and bredren,
and de whole family, plus de woodworking, too,
all I love, if it was up to me?”

I breathe deep, gaze on him
from him head to him toe, one last time.
“See three loaf of new bread I just bake

in dat bag, and a wineskin your gran
send wid Judith daughter dis morning.
She say, send, tell her when you going.

“I going stop by de yard
as I leaving, to tell Gran goodbye.
Big thanks for de eats and de drink,

but you know my food in de wild
going be fasting and prayer, my Mums.
I sure you don’t want my Papa up so...”

and him turn him eye up to de sky,
“to vex wid me right as I start out?”
“Why you can’t pray here, son?

I will keep food and drink far from you.
I will honour your fast. Is a thing I do for
Joseph plenty times when him was still wid us.”

Him bend down and kiss me,
say, “Mums, dis not de worst.
Me must get ready for some dread things.”

When I go to answer, him put one finger on
my lip. “Hush, Mums,” him repeat,
“believe me, if de choosing was mine

I would stay.”
And him look round de room,
touch de big water jug, scuff de rug

wid him foot, take him staff
and walk through de door –
never turn him head round to look back.


From de book of Mary

About Pamela Mordecai

Pamela ('Pam') Mordecai’s previous collections of poetry include Journey Poem (1989); de Man, a performance poem (1995); Certifiable (2001); The True Blue of Islands (2005), and Subversive Sonnets (2012). de book of Mary, from which “Jesus Takes Leave of Mary and Goes  into the Desert” comes, will appear in fall, 2015. In 2006 she published Pink Icing, a collection of short stories; her first novel, Red Jacket, appeared in February, 2015. She has edited and co-edited ground-breaking anthologies of Caribbean writing including Jamaica Woman (1980, 1985, with Mervyn Morris); From Our Yard: Jamaican Poetry since Independence (1987); Her True-True Name: An Anthology of Women's Writing from the Caribbean (1989, with Betty Wilson) and Calling Cards: New Poetry from Caribbean/ Canadian Women (2005). Her play, El Numero Uno had its world premiere at the Loraine Kimsa Theatre for Young People in Toronto in 2010. In spring 2014, she was a fellow at the prestigious Yaddo artists' community in upstate New York yaddo.org. Pam and her family immigrated to Canada in 1994. She lives with her husband, Martin, in Kitchener, Ontario.

Reading: Pamela Mordecai

Five Questions With... Pamela Mordecai

Pamela Mordecai, author of Subversive Sonnets

1. What on earth possessed you to write sonnets in this day and age?
Sneaky, Geoff! That’s two questions in one! So, first: What on earth possessed you to write sonnets in this day and age? 
The sonnet has been around a while, six hundred years or so, but we can still consider it modern because, though it’s fallen out of favour a couple times, it’s come back and held its own right up to the present. It’s also adapted over time and proved very versatile. So Sonnette (her German name) is an old girl who’s weathered well! Though free verse or vers libre has been around for much of that time, and some poets have ditched formal poetry once and for all, many poets have kept writing in traditional forms, including the sonnet form. And there are poets like Rainer Maria Rilke and Derek Walcott, for example, who write both free and formal verse. 
The second question is What on earth possessed you to write sonnets in this day and age?
Simplest answer is that I find that having a pre-established form to depend on when I write poetry can be very useful. This time, the sonnet seemed to fit the bill.
2. Why did you choose the title, Subversive Sonnets? It seems almost oxymoronic.   It is oxymoronic. (I specially like the moronic part.) For a long time the working title was Litany on the Line: subversive sonnets in thirty-three sequences. But when I put that title up on FB, friends said, just call it “Subversive Sonnets!” The title is to the point, since I wanted to sabotage and disrupt both the form and content of the sonnet. I wasn’t going to observe the set forms of Petrarch or Shakespeare. I wanted to bang the form about a bit, as others have done before. My banging about was going to be different though. I intended to write in patwa, aka the demotic (from the Greek root demos = the common people, as in democratic), and I was also going to mash up English and/or creole with other languages: Shona, Cree, kwéyol, Spanish, French, Latin. I also wanted to treat everyday subjects in a down-to-earth way – seriously but matter-of-factly. I think of the poems as having a low rather than high seriousness., but a seriousness all the same. There’s one, “Thomas Thistlewood and Tom” about a slave being given Derby’s Dose. That’s about as basic as one can get! But it’s a love poem as well, and sonnets started out as love poems. 
3. Why did you livicate "Lace Makers" to Tony McNeill?
“Lace Makers” was an offering I made to Tony ages ago probably to celebrate those ‘embroidered’ lines at the ends of some of his poems. I don’t know any other poets who use this concrete embroidery in their poetry, though there may be some. That makes him a lace-maker. Also, he’s a good, very old friend. We shared troubled times. He helped me with my writing. I still think he’s the most original poetic talent in the Caribbean, laureates included. And he is (or was) a wild creature, a force of nature and a maker of exquisite things, like Rosie in the poem.
4. Many of the poems exhibit a fear of mania, yet in "Bluesman," there seems to be an embrace. Why the change?
I, who have a collection of poetry called Certifiable, really hope none of the poems ‘exhibit a fear of mania’! Mania is in many cases the condition of honest, deeply engaged people whose chemical or physiological wiring has gone wrong.  Phineas Gage is a good example. There’s a theory of ‘madness’ based on disturbed persons having a direct, unremitting engagement with ‘reality’, which is, of course, so horrible that it drives them to distraction. Antipsychotic drugs are often described as inserting a filter (missing in ‘mad’ people, present in ‘sane’ people) between the psyche and the assaulting world outside, so that the contact with outside stimuli is not so intense. You’re right about the embrace in “Bluesman” but I wonder if the other poems aren’t peculiar embraces of the same sort? “Family Story, only child’s version” ends, “Careful then, how you cross me.” It’s an empowered position on the part of the unbalanced only child, with the mother whom she makes “walk and jabber to herself,” and the grandfather who took his own life. At the end of “No problema, doc, the persona makes the paradoxical statement, “When I do harm, it’s harmlessly.” Well, will she or won’t she harm harmlessly? What does the poem suggest will be the effect if her harmless harming? Isn’t she in control, however frayed her life? Doesn’t she toy with her therapist? Describe the signs of her condition with humour, however twisted? And so on… 
5. Akan, Igbo and Catholic spirituality converge in your collection. Were you uncomfortable with this poetic ecumenism?
It’s Akan, Igbo and Catholic spirituality that converge. Ecumenism is about religion. Religion is the organized affair that ‘s resulted over the centuries in our fighting and killing one another. Spirituality involves the spirit in each of us reaching out, in the way we know best, to The Great Spirit Out There, however we name that spirit. 

About Pamela Mordecai:
Pamela Mordecai writes poetry, fiction and plays. Her four previous collections of poetry are Journey Poem; de man: a performance poem; Certifiable and The True Blue of Islands. Her first collection of short fiction, Pink Icing and Other Stories, appeared in 2006. Her writing for children is widely collected and well known internationally. El Numero Uno, a play for young people, had its world premiere at the Lorraine Kimsa Theatre for Young People in Toronto in 2010. She lives in Kitchener, Ontario.


For more information, please follow this link:  http://tsarbooks.com/TSAR_SubversiveSonnets.htm


Blog Disclosure Policy

Geoffrey Philp’s Blog Spot receives a percentage of the purchase price on anything you buy through links to Amazon, Shambala Books, Hay House, or any of the Google ads or Google Custom Search.

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Disclaimer of Endorsement

The documents posted on this Web site may contain hypertext links or pointers to information created and maintained by other public and private organizations. These links and pointers are provided for visitors' convenience. I do not control or guarantee the accuracy, relevance, timeliness, or completeness of any linked information. Further, the inclusion of links or pointers to other Web sites or agencies is not intended to assign importance to those sites and the information contained therein, nor is it intended to endorse, recommend, or favor any views expressed, or commercial products or services offered on these outside sites, or the organizations sponsoring the sites, by trade name, trademark, manufacture, or otherwise.

Reference in this Web site to any specific commercial products, processes, or services, or the use of any trade, firm or corporation name is for the information and convenience of the site's visitors, and does not constitute endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by this blog.

Pamela Mordecai's Subversive Sonnets

These “subversive sonnets” overhaul the traditional sonnet form to address a range of subjects, from the tenderness of love to the terror of rape, punishment, torture, and murder.

The poet’s quest is to corral iambics into the demotic of Jamaican creoles as well as forms of English past and present. Mordecai has an unfailing ear for voices, for the music that sings and laughs and laments the stories of family, clan, and tribe, thus celebrating life in all its aspects. This is Pamela Mordecai’s fifth collection of poetry.

"Like Pamela Mordecai’s other work, Subversive Sonnets is clever, witty, insightful and linguistically acrobatic. Never one to shy away from difficult themes, Mordecai employs the sonnet form to sing more than ‘little songs’. There is organ music here too as thematically she moves between the bottomless deeps and praise of heaven’s wonders. A courageous, affirmative, and – yes – entertaining read. A wise, highly crafted and satisfying exploration of life deeply lived in all its infinite refractions and life as we’d like it to be." —Olive Senior, author of Dancing Lessons.

“Subversive Sonnets is an astonishing achievement. Beautifully gloved in the materiality of everyday things and not-always everyday places, these poems yet push the reader towards speculative realms of gold, where real places also become mind places and homes of deep feeling. Mordecai readily takes us from the finely personal to wider grief for North America’s, the Caribbean’s, and all our sins, from the saucily bawdy to political fury and horror at a New World turned bitterly, bitingly old, or from a joyous bounce to subsequent personal loss and collective agony that can become skin-crawlingly terrifying. These sonnets are the achievement of years of a poet’s wisdom.”—Timothy J. Reiss, Professor Emeritus of Comparative Literature, New York University.

“Subversive Sonnets is sweet, acerbic, scintillating, and sassy. If you want to be right, you can't go wrong in reading these verses that modernize the sonnet, putting it in service of mischief, not only meditation. Mordecai has assembled a collection that is arrogant in its dazzle and provocative in its sizzle. Here's the real poetry, folks: thought given discipline and then set free to sing and/or singe.” — George Elliott Clarke E.J. Pratt Professor of Canadian Literature, University of Toronto.

About the Author:

Pamela Mordecai writes poetry, fiction and plays. Her four previous collections of poetry are Journey Poem; de man: a performance poem; Certifiable and The True Blue of Islands. Her first collection of short fiction, Pink Icing and Other Stories, appeared in 2006. Her writing for children is widely collected and well known internationally. El Numero Uno, a play for young people, had its world premiere at the Lorraine Kimsa Theatre for Young People in Toronto in 2010. She lives in Kitchener, Ontario.

For more information, please follow this link:  http://tsarbooks.com/TSAR_SubversiveSonnets.htm
***
Blog Disclosure Policy

Geoffrey Philp’s Blog Spot receives a percentage of the purchase price on anything you buy through links to Amazon, Shambala Books, Hay House, or any of the Google ads or Google Custom Search.


***

Disclaimer of Endorsement

The documents posted on this Web site may contain hypertext links or pointers to information created and maintained by other public and private organizations. These links and pointers are provided for visitors' convenience. I do not control or guarantee the accuracy, relevance, timeliness, or completeness of any linked information. Further, the inclusion of links or pointers to other Web sites or agencies is not intended to assign importance to those sites and the information contained therein, nor is it intended to endorse, recommend, or favor any views expressed, or commercial products or services offered on these outside sites, or the organizations sponsoring the sites, by trade name, trademark, manufacture, or otherwise.

Reference in this Web site to any specific commercial products, processes, or services, or the use of any trade, firm or corporation name is for the information and convenience of the site's visitors, and does not constitute endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by this blog.

Black Canadian Writers @ CBC Books

 http://www.cbc.ca/books/black-canadian-literature.html 

Throughout February and March, literary journalist, teacher and author Donna Bailey Nurse will be blogging for CBC Books about black Canadian writers and their important works.





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